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Housing development forces move for popular Chelmsford restaurant

By Grant Welker, gwelker@lowellsun.com

Updated:
05/19/2014 11:14:57 AM EDT

Gene's Chinese Flatbread Cafe on Littleton Road in Chelmsford is seeking a new home in town because a housing complex is planned for the site. The restaurant will move to Woburn next month, but owner Gene Wu is hoping to find another location in Chelmsford as well.
SUN/Grant Welker

CHELMSFORD -- Soon losing its home on Littleton Road to an affordable-housing development, Gene's Chinese Flatbread Cafe could be taking its popular noodles elsewhere.

Gene's will open a new location next month in Woburn, which may either be a replacement for the Chelmsford location or a second site, depending on whether owner Gene Wu can find another spot in Chelmsford. He wants to find a good space elsewhere in town, he said.

"I don't want to just walk away," Wu said. "Our neighbors are so good to us. We've made friends here."

Gene's Chinese Flatbread Cafe will have to move out of its home for three years because of a planned affordable-housing development for the site called Chelmsford Woods.

Gene Wu owns Gene's Chinese Flatbread Cafe, a popular Chelmsford restaurant that has to move because of a planned housing development on the site.
SUN/Grant Welker

Construction on the 115-unit development, which will also replace some rental units on the site, is expected to start this summer and last about a year.

The Chelmsford Housing Authority, which will own and manage the property, expects to close on the site in July, said David Hedison, the authority's director.

Wu is looking potentially to move to available space in Drum Hill or on Alpine Lane, just north of the town center, but said he's worried about whether he'll have enough parking on Alpine Lane. Evan Belansky, the town's community-development director, said the town has determined that parking spaces on the site are adequate under zoning standards.

Wu didn't come to the United States planning to own a restaurant.

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He moved from his native China in 1997 and worked as a chemist in Billerica. But owning a restaurant was "a childhood dream," he said.

Wu opened the Chelmsford location three years ago, and then another in the Downtown Crossing section of Boston, near Chinatown, last summer.

Running the restaurants is a tough task and a major time commitment for Wu, who has a daughter in elementary school. He regularly works 17-hour days -- 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. -- at either location, seven days a week. He said he had only one day off all last year -- Christmas. He would have been off on Thanksgiving, too, but was called to the Chelmsford store when a neighbor noticed a burst pipe.

The owner said he's sad about the potential for leaving Chelmsford, even though the Woburn location is much closer to his home.

"From here," Wu said, pointing to his heart. "That's where we started. We want to stay in Chelmsford."

But he's also not upset about plans for the site, saying "they're doing the right thing" by building affordable housing.

Chelmsford Woods is one of several affordable-housing complexes known as 40B developments proposed in town.

One proposal that has received strong opposition from residents would be built at the east end of Mill Road in east Chelmsford. It is currently being reviewed by the Zoning Board of Appeals.

Another complex, which would be built down Littleton Road from Chelmsford Woods, is Hillside Gardens. The 44-unit complex has survived years of legal challenges, with work now expected to begin this year.

Two 40B developments could also be built at opposite ends of Riverneck Road. The state has given preliminary approval for Greenwood Estates, 13-unit development on the west end of Riverneck Road across from Pine Ridge Cemetery. About a mile and a half to the east, a 14-home subdivision called McKennedy Farm is planned for 62-68 Riverneck Road.

Two other Housing Authority projects, veteran housing on Manahan Street in Chelmsford and on Carlisle Road in Westford, are slated to open in September. The authority is also finalizing an agreement to build a 40B development of nine units in Harvard.

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